The Green Destiny Sword (From Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon)

The Green Destiny Sword (also known as the “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon Sword”) seems to have many imitation replicas – but very few are in any way authentic copies.

While there is an official version, produced by the Noble Collection, the US$295 price tag borders on the ridiculous, especially when you consider that it’s nothing more than a wall-hanger sword.

After all, at the end of the day, this movie sword is just a glorified Chinese “Jian” (Tai Chi) sword. And ok - while it's a bit more than 295 bucks ($383 to be precise), I’d be much more inclined to go for a REAL Paul Chen sharpened Tai Chi Sword (pictured below) which is a truly breathtaking fully fucntiobnal sword with Damascus steel, a solid hardwood handle and antique style brass fittings…

Anyway, back to the 'display version' - the imitations of the this sword are considerably cheaper than the official version – but it certainly doesn’t make them any better.

Overall, the unofficial versions have a price tag from around US$79.99 to US$159 and are made by a variety of manufacturers. However, if the Noble Collection replica is “exactly like the films original” – the copies are really quite abstract and are pretty poor imitations. In fact, the majority of these replicas don't even have the right colored hand-guards or tassels!

Again, Mr. Chen comes through with the Practical Tai Chi Sword – which is a real carbon steel Chinese Jian sword that is often available for less than 100 bucks, finely balanced and puts the cheap imitations to shame.

Overall, while I enjoyed the movie, I can’t recommend the replicas of the Green Destiny Sword and would suggest that if you like the style of Chinese swords, you’d be better off getting a Paul Chen Tai Chi Sword…